Government shutdown awards -- the best and worst of week one

Welcome to the Government Shutdown Awards, brought to you by House Republicans, Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama.

This is the first -- and let's hope the last -- edition of these awards. By this time next week, this fiscal showdown better be resolved -- or at least close to being resolved -- or the U.S. is going to be perilously close to running out of money to pay its bills.

For now, however, the shutdown standoff continues. The House continued Friday to pass piecemeal bills funding individual agencies. The Senate refused to take these bills up, and Obama threatened to veto them.

But even though nothing is getting done, there are some things worth noting. So without further ado, this week's Government Shutdown Awards:

Most awkward quote for Democrats

A senior administration official gave a gift to Republicans when he or she told the Wall Street Journal: "We are winning … it doesn't really matter to us" how long the shutdown lasts "because what matters is the end result."

Winning?

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, quickly capitalized on this quote. He held up Friday's edition of the Wall Street Journal at his morning news conference, referred to the quote, and slammed the newspaper on the podium.

"This isn't some damn game," Boehner shouted.

The quote undercut the Democrats' strategy of blaming Republicans for the shutdown and pointing to the hardships it's creating for Americans, including small businesses.

Most awkward quote for Republicans

Give Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., credit for candor. Like the rest of us, he doesn't know what the Republican strategy is to end the shutdown.

Worst performance by government employees

This one goes to the National Park Service for closing outdoor memorials in Washington, D.C, that usually are open 24 hours a day. That didn't stop a band of World War II veterans from Mississippi from removing the barricades and visiting the World War II Memorial Tuesday -- a story that brought lots of negative attention to the National Park Service, and, by extension, Obama.

By Wednesday, park police allowed groups of World War II veterans to visit the memorial, even though it remained closed to the public.

The moral of this story: Don't mess with the Greatest Generation!

Best performance by government employees

The Secret Service and the U.S. Capitol Police made sure that no one at the White House or the Capitol was endangered by a motorist who first struck a barrier outside the White House, hit a Secret Service officer and then led police on a high-speed chase toward the Capitol. The chase ended outside a Senate office building.

Police shot the driver, a woman who turned out to be unarmed. But in this era of car bombs and deranged killers, security comes first in Washington, D.C. This woman could have been a terrorist or a mass murderer like the Navy Yards shooter two weeks ago. Officers did what they were trained to do - at potentially great risk to themselves -- and stopped the threat.

And thanks to the government shutdown, they're doing their jobs without pay, at least for now.

Biggest political football

Both parties are trying to use the National Institutes of Health as a poster child in their political posturing over the government shutdown. The House passed a separate funding bill for NIH, and then a few Republicans who are doctors and nurses put on their lab coats and held a new conference denouncing the Senate for refusing to take up this bill.

NIH funding is needed so children with rare diseases can continue to benefit from clinical trials, Republicans said.

"You will not sleep until that happens," she told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., through the media.

Reid and other Senate Democrats stuck to their position that it's unfair to pick and choose among government agencies -- all of them need to be funded. That would happen immediately if the House would just pass the Senate's overall funding bill, they said.

Friday morning, Senate Democrats held a news conference of their own, citing the importance of funding NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration. On hand were doctors and the mother of a young boy who is benefiting from an NIH clinical trial.

The kid stole the show, crawling around the floor of the U.S. Capitol's Mansfield Room and occasionally staring up at Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., as she spoke.